The Burqa Does Not Liberate, and the State Does Not Own Women
The Taliban’s war on women is not merely a religious or cultural issue. It is the logical result of a state that claims ownership over private life.
Written By: Matsheole Majoro
In June of this year, in the Western Afghan city of Herat, women marched chanting “education, work, freedom”. Taliban police responded with live ammo. At least two people were killed. Dozens more were injured. The crime that provoked this protest was not violence – it was wearing a hijab “improperly”.
Since coming to power in August 2021 the Taliban has meticulously erased women from public life. Girls are prohibited from education beyond primary school. Women are excluded from most forms of paid employment. They are prohibited from travel without a male guardian. They must cover their faces and bodies fully in public, prohibited from wearing “transparent, tight or short” clothing. In November 2025, the Taliban excluded female patients and medical staff who do not wear the all-encompassing burqa from entering public hospitals in Herat. A hospital employee employed by Doctors Without Borders was recently taken into custody for two days and released only after signing a written commitment to follow the new dress code. In April 2026 a new ruling on the “Judicial separation of spouses” effectively validated child marriage and made it nearly unattainable for women to leave abusive relationships. The ruling translates a girl’s silence after puberty as consent to marriage. Men may divorce autonomously; women may not. The state has become the guardian of every Afghan woman’s body, and it is an abusive guardian.
The Taliban does not have a women issue, but rather a state issue. Every constraint on women is a declaration of state control over individual bodies, choices, and lives. The burqa directives are not about modesty; they are about visibility, who may be seen, who may move, who may exist in public spaces. The education ban is not about devoutness. It is about making sure half the population is illiterate and helpless. The marriage ruling is not about family values. It is about removing female consent entirely.
The international community’s response has been entrenched institutionalism. The UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling on the Taliban to reverse its clamp down. UN experts’ issues statements of “grave concern” Amnesty International demands diplomatic pressure. But these are the instruments of governments talking to governments. They assume that the issues are bad policies that can be amended by good policies, if only the right people are convinced. But the Taliban is not a government that made a few mistakes; it is an autocratic project that arises its legitimacy from controlling every aspect of private life.
Classical liberalism offers a different analysis. A government that regulates personal life oversteps the boundaries of state authority. From this view the Taliban did not create this broad system of governance, in inherited a state setup set on the belief that the government has a right to intervene in personal affairs.
What would a classical liberal response look like? First, acknowledge that the Taliban’s legitimacy depends entirely on compulsion. Without morality police, no woman would willingly agree to these rules. Second, back voluntary civil society organisations that work independently of the state, secret schools and underground women networks. These are true resistance. Third, decline the idea that the international community must engage only with the state. Independent media can support Afghan women without looking for approval from the Taliban. Fourth, and most importantly, never confuse state perception with moral legitimacy. The Taliban does not need to be convinced – it needs to be made irrelevant.
Some will argue that this is impractical. What can private actors do against a state with guns? The answer is that states with guns have been conquered before, not by other states with bigger guns, but by the slow deterioration of legitimacy, the growth of rival structures and the refusal of individuals to participate. Afghan women are already resisting the Taliban in small ways every day. They are teaching each other in secret and are declining to be erased. That is classical liberalism on the ground.
The West made a huge mistake in Afghanistan. It built a centralised state and called it democracy. It invested billions into Kabul while ignoring the villages. It treated women’s rights as a state project rather than community project. Then the state collapsed, and so did the rights. That is the lesson classical liberals have always known, rights that rely on the state can be taken away by the state. Rights that rely on free individuals, voluntary associations, and civil society are much harder to destroy.
Afghan women don’t need another UN resolution. They do not need another diplomatic engagement strategy. They need the international community to stop treating the Taliban as the only game in town. They need support for the rival structures they are already building. They need the world to recognise that freedom is not given by governments. It is exercised by individuals, one act of defiance at a time.
Rather than asking for permission from the state, the women of Herat constantly asked for education, work and freedom. They maintained these rights. Their actions show a convincing example of public courage.
Matsheole Majoro is a final year Bachelor of Arts in International Relations student and an Associate of the Free Market Foundation.